A few weeks after the incident with Crowley I turned to Sam and said to him, "You never told me you had a brother."
"I had a lot of things, once," he said.
That was all he needed to say for me to leave it alone. We hunters all have our sad story to tell. No one just leaves a straight life behind for fun. We're born into it, or we're born into it through blood. Either way, we could all fill a set of encyclopedia with the stories we don't want to talk about.
I learned about Dean all the same, now I knew he existed. Parts of Dean's personality became apparent because of Sam's reaction to them. I grew to realize there was a certain look of lost, little boy sadness that fell over Sam's features now and then. When Dean showed up he called this look Sam's bitch-face, because apparently it was the look he gave Dean when they were both younger to get what he wanted. I imagined that was what he looked like when he was thinking about his brother.
Keeping an eye out for this look, I soon felt I knew Dean.
Sam generally kept out of greasy spoons and trucker joints, but when he was forced to go to places like that, he seemed done in by memories of his brother. He'd look around the table at whoever had ordered the greasiest, nastiest burger as though he was tempted to say something about their choice, and then the sadness would wash over him. Dean must have loved his burgers. Same with pie. The pie thing was weird, though, because sometimes Sam would order a piece and not finish it—almost like he was offering a sacrifice to someone, or setting a place for the newly departed.
Dean must have had a cheesy sense of humour, too, because Sam avoided the General like the plague, and no one could account for it. Sam didn't seem like he had much of a sense of humour, so we'd always just thought he was too serious to care much for a joker, but now I suspected Dean had made corny jokes the same way the General did.
He sometimes got almost choked up around little kids and parents—and especially if there were two little kids and a single parent. Sam wasn't great with kids, but he always seemed to remember Dean when he saw them. Maybe Dean had been old enough to help raise him, or maybe Dean had had children of his own. Maybe Dean was just the sort of guy who connects with kids right off—not that I could imagine a hunter like that—but I suspected he might be a soft touch that way.
Most of all Dean seemed like he was good man who always knew the right thing to do. Whenever there was a moral dilemma—some question of ethics—Sam floundered, looking around at the faces of his travelling companions as though he wasn't qualified to make a choice like that. Had Dean been the one telling him what was right and what was wrong his whole life?
What had Sam done that had been so wrong he no longer trusted himself to make those choices?
What had Dean done that had been so right Sam thought Dean should do the thinking for both of them?
I've never found out the answers to those questions. Maybe I'm wrong about some things. I know I was right about the sense of humour and the pie.
We went back and got more information from Clarke a few days later. He was able to tell us that there were magnetic fluctuations around sites that had a tablet nearby. I didn't see how this would help us. "So what do we do, do a grid search of the entire world while looking at a compass?" I asked.
"You can probably leave anything around sea-level off your search. Most of the places were tablets have been found have been at least three thousand feet above sea level," he said.
"Have they been found higher than that?" Sam asked.
"No, it seems to be about the right elevation for them," Clarke said.
"I'm not going to start climbing mountains for this shit," I mumbled.
"Hopefully we won't have to," Sam said. "Is there anything else? Any other clue?"
"Well, it says that men will feel a natural aversion to building anything on the sites of the burial grounds. So if there is a city that's three thousand feet above sea level, you can rule it out, because people built something there," Clarke said.
"Any idea how deep these things are buried?" Sam asked.
"Maybe you should talk to a geologist—find out how deep the layers of vegetation and silt and all that would have built up over all those thousands of years would be," Clarke said.
While we were walking back to the impala, I had to state the obvious. "How are we going to dig down and find these tablets? We don't have access to a huge workforce or the equipment we would need to dig like Dick Roman did."
"Maybe something got lost in the translation," he said. "I'm going to get a second opinion."
I looked away from Sam so he couldn't see me rolling my eyes. "How are these things any safer with you than they would be in the ground? I mean, let's face it, you're a good hunter, but you're not Fort Knox, and Crowley has every demon in hell on his side."
"She's a bit smarter than you and your brother—or maybe not. After all, because of her I have everything I need to find the stones. You can still help, if you want," Crowley said.
Sam looked shocked that Crowley had appeared out of nowhere, right in the middle of a university parking lot, but not as shocked as I was. Could a demon just hang out invisible with you for as long as he wanted? It seemed so…creepy.
"Crowley, why do you even want these things?" Sam asked, his voice strangely holding more exasperation than alarm.
"I thought you were the smart one, Moose. Knowledge is power. I'd have to be a fool not to want them," Crowley said.
"Why would you need our help?" I asked. "Don't you have thousands of demons to help you do whatever you need to do?"
"Getting demons topside is never easy. Red tape, you know. If I could put every demon in hell in a human whenever I wanted—but sadly, there is a process that has to be followed. And then when they get here, half of them haven't been topside since the middle ages. Orientation is a bitch. It'd be a lot easier if I had your neat little army to do the heavy lifting," Crowley said.
"We're hardly an army," I murmured.
"Money, of course, is no object. I'll find the sites, and you hire the local excavators or what have you to clear the site," Crowley said.
"I told you, I'm not giving you the tablets," Sam argued.
Crowley all of a sudden seemed to burn cold. "I don't need you Sam, not really. If you don't want to help, you'll miss out on the chance to get your brother back, and you'll never get to the tablets first. You know my resources better than anyone. If you don't want to help, just say the word."
Sam glared, and he must have been considering how he could steal the tablets out from under Crowley better if they were partners than if he were out on his own. I know that's what I was thinking. "Fine. But first we make a deal. If we get a word of God, and give it to you, you find Dean and bring him back."
"The first one? Have you forgotten who I am? I'm the king of the Crossroads, and I don't make bad deals. Try again," he said.
"How many are there?" Sam asked with some dismay.
"There are five. The Leviathan, the Gods, the Monsters, the Humans and the Demons. I did hear rumours about an angel tablet—but I haven't been able to find out if it's just a myth or not," Crowley said.
"How is it that you found this entire thing out and still weren't able to find out about the magnetic thing?" I asked.
"That little nugget was only shared with one Hebrew prophet, and he never made the trip downstairs. Only a few copies of his prophecies exist, and I never found one. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get started. I'll call you with a location, Sam."
After he left Sam and I made our way to the impala and got in.
"So the King of Hell has your phone number?" I asked absently.
"Unfortunately," he muttered.